The AASHTO Journal joined a special May 12 tour of the CTfastrak bus rapid transit or BRT system in Hartford, CT, held in conjunction with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 2025 Spring Meeting.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
The CTfastrak system – which marked its 10th anniversary this year – is a system of 10 bus routes operated by the Connecticut Department of Transportation that provides direct service to and from the towns and cities of Waterbury, Cheshire, Southington, Bristol, Plainville, New Britain, Newington, West Hartford, Hartford, and Manchester.
The CTfastrak BRT system – which won a President’s Award from AASHTO in 2015 – is anchored around a 9.4-mile bus-only “guideway” built on a former railroad right-of-way between New Britain and Hartford. It also provides a one-seat, no-transfer ride to many regional employment, shopping, and healthcare destinations, as well as to state passenger rail lines, including the New Haven Line, the Waterbury Branch Line, and the Hartford Line.
Since its launch in 2015, CTfastrak has provided more than 28.5 million passenger trips and currently averages about 14,000 weekday trips. Among its bus pathways is Route 101, which makes stops in downtown Hartford and is the busiest bus route in the state, serving about 1.1 million passengers annually, according to Connecticut DOT.
The CTfastrak tour took attendees up and down the entire 9.4-mile guideway, with a stop at Hartford’s Union Station for a brief overview of CT Rail operations and future improvements – including the deployment of new trainsets in 2026.
Lisa Rivers, Connecticut DOT’s transit administrator, noted that the guideway runs alongside both an active railway and portions of I-84, which required some delicate engineering tactics – especially around I-84’s highway pillars and a local cemetery – during construction.
Built for $567 million in three years, with 80 percent of that from federal funding, the CTfastrack BRT system has spurred some $550 million in transit-oriented development near the various stations along the guideway – including over 1,000 housing units. The system is also now converting to an all-electric fleet of buses as well.
Rivers noted during the tour that deploying a BRT system versus a light rail solution along the guideway not only significantly lowered the system’s construction and ongoing operations cost but allowed for faster service times as well. “The bus frequency is every seven minutes,” she said. “It would be far too costly to get that frequently with rail.”
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